IuniusBrutus posted:

But can any of them run CivII?

loquacius posted:

Eagerly anticipating this next wave of 11- and 13-inch convertibles. My Acer W510 was vaguely netbooky at the best of times and is now showing its age -- it's one thing to realize I don't need a laptop that can run Skyrim and another to have to restart my tablet whenever I accidentally open a fifth browser tab even though I knew drat well one of the other ones was Facebook. Lenovo and (surprisingly) Dell have some compelling devices coming down the pipe, and I've heard some of the higher-end Acer machines are actually fairly decent but I'm mostly turned off from them now.

All else fails I'll just get a Surface Pro 2. I'd prefer a clamshell form factor, but those things still look drat nice.

Internet Explorer posted:

The Power Cover for the Surface Pro should be coming out soon and that will convert it into a clamshell form factor.

loquacius posted:

If you spring for one of the really high-end ones with 8 gigs of RAM the Surface could be a desktop replacer with that thing.

quote:

Lenovo has informed ZDNet that the stylus/pen that comes with the optional $20 smart cover is capacitive (for working with touch screens) and does not use an active digitizer.

lostleaf posted:

I'm very excited about the dell venue 8 pro mainly because it has an active digitizer. Waiting for some reviews before dropping the money.

Sri.Theo posted:

A MS surface with active digitiser and Baytrail (for real windows) would actually be my ideal device.

Stick100 posted:

Yes all of them.

loquacius posted:

The Pro 2's Haswell isn't doing it for you?

keyframe posted:

Holy poo poo I thought these were RT tablets. Do any of them have a wacom digitizer like the surface pen? If they have pressure sensitivity and can run sketchbook pro ok, I am buying one asap.

lostleaf posted:

Call me Charlie, you might want to update the OP for the lenovo miix 2. The stylus is actually passive not active. reference link

Call Me Charlie posted:

Thanks I added that.

Zarfol posted:

I've preordered a surface pro 2, 128 GB version. Still wondering if the 2lb weight makes in feasible to use as a tablet for an extended period of time and or if it would cause wrist strain to hold it up.

I didn't think the power cover was going to make the surface into a clamshell, definitely going to wait and pick that up then instead of a type cover.

quote:

The Transformer Book T100 is really the Wintel camp’s answer to the Chromebook onslaught. Compared to the traditional entry-level PCs out there, the T100 really is a breath of fresh air. You get an IPS panel, great battery life and modern WiFi all in a package that can work as both a notebook and a tablet. The system is responsive and predictable in its performance thanks to the use of solid state storage. While there isn’t a full blown SSD inside, the eMMC solution is clearly better for light consumer workloads than a mechanical disk. Solid performance from the rear facing speakers and excellent portability round out the T100’s package. If I had to compare it to what you’d normally expect to get from a $349/$399 Windows PC, I’d say the Transformer Book T100 is a clear winner.

Where things get complicated is if/when you start comparing across platforms. ASUS and Google set the standard for affordable color calibrated displays with the 2013 Nexus 7, and unfortunately the T100 comes no where close to that. Even HP’s Chromebook 11 delivers a more accurate out of box experience than the T100. Again, the T100’s display isn’t bad, it just desperately needs a factory calibration.

It’s important to keep the T100’s performance in perspective. For light multitasking or single app-use workloads, the T100 does very well (much better than the Chromebook 11 we just reviewed). Light browsing and document work are at home on the T100. Don’t expect it to be a Haswell replacement though. I would like to see the gap narrow between Intel’s Atom and Core lines, but I’m afraid it’s going to take real performance pressure from a competitor before we ever see that day.

The dock experience on the T100 is reasonable, but it’s clear to me that the Transformer Book T100 is first and foremost a tablet, and only serves as a clamshell device as a secondary function. That’s not to say it makes for a bad notebook experience, it can just be cramped as a result of the 10.1-inch display footprint. If you’re looking for a device that you’ll use mostly as a tablet but want the flexibility of turning it into a notebook when you need to, the T100 can definitely fit the bill. If your desire is primarily for a touchscreen notebook, then the T100’s tradeoffs may be more frustrating.

At the end of the day the T100 is a good device, but like the Chromebook 11 we recently reviewed it could’ve been amazing with a few tweaks. With a less reflective display, color calibration at the factory and a better feeling keyboard/trackpad I’d be absolutely in love with the T100. I also wonder if 10.1-inches is the right form factor for this sort of a device. I’m not sure that Microsoft’s decision to go with 10.6-inches is the right one either, but the typing experience on a Surface’s type/touch covers does feel remarkably less cramped.

The T100 truly lives up to the Transformer brand. The combination of Intel's Bay Trail silicon and ASUS' mechanicals gives the device a dual personality. In tablet mode it's just as portable as any other 10-inch tablet, while in clamshell mode it can be a netbook-style ultraportable PC. I’d love to see ASUS continue down this path and truly try to perfect the device. I look at the work that ASUS and Google do together and can’t help but wonder what the T100 would look like if it had the same sort of pressure/influence. Perhaps that’s a bigger criticism of how Microsoft works with its partners, but I look at the comparison of ASUS tablets with and without Google’s influence and try to imagine a further polished Transformer Book. That’s something I’d really like to see.

There are very few perfect computing devices out there, but ASUS is one of the companies with the ability to build one if it really tries.

keyframe posted:

Apparently dell has a 11" venue pro with i5 option for a rumored $499 with pen support. If that is true I will buy that poo poo so fast it will leave a burn mark on the credit card machine.

Call Me Charlie posted:

$499 is the base model with Atom. There's going to be i3 and i5 options but no word on how much they'll cost.

Sri.Theo posted:

Same here, although as the pen requires a battery it seems to be some unique technology. It will be interesting to see how well it works along with palm detection.

Ragingsheep posted:

How do the new Atoms compare to (my old) AMD Phenom II X4 965 in performance?

Call Me Charlie posted:

Space Gopher posted:

Active digitizers always require some kind of power source. Wacom's desktop models get around the issue by sending power to the pen through the sensing grid, but it's cheaper, easier, and more efficient to just design a pen with a battery.

Space Gopher posted:

They're quite a bit slower - roughly comparable to laptop CPUs from the late Core 2 era. That's still quite fast by tablet standards, but keep in mind that you're comparing a low-end mobile CPU with a power budget of about two watts to a slightly aged midrange desktop CPU that could chew through as much as 125W.

mAlfunkti0n posted:

Bought a Dell Venue 8 Pro to test .. never know it could be amazing and fill my need for something I didn't know I needed.